With Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidates pitching themselves as the scourge of payday lenders, the campaigns have begun to snipe at each other over their anti-predatory lending credentials.
Terry McAuliffe’s suggestion that he is the only man in the race to want to “ban all predatory lending in Virginia,” according to his recent radio spot, raised the ire of state Sen. Creigh Deeds, who saw a rebuttal as vital enough to make it the subject of his first radio ad.
Both Deeds and former Del. Brian Moran, the third Democratic hopeful, voted for a 2002 bill that legalized the short-term, high-interest loans in Virginia, a fact seized on by McAuliffe, who has never served in the legislature. Both Deeds and Moran also voted last year to impose a 36 percent annual interest rate cap and other restrictions on the loans.
Each Democratic candidate has pledged to go further — to completely push out payday lenders — if elected to the executive mansion in November. The nominee will be decided by a June 9 primary.
The unopposed Republican in the race, former Attorney General Robert McDonnell, is not pushing for an outright ban. McDonnell “believes the proper balance is a system in which individual citizens make their own decisions regarding financial assistance, and any companies providing that assistance are properly regulated,” spokesman Tucker Martin said.
For now, the Democrats have taken aim at each other, not McDonnell, over the issue. Deeds equated McAuliffe’s criticism of the 2002 bill to an attack on the current and previous Democratic governors — Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
Said a male voice in Deeds’ radio spot: “Yep, McAuliffe wants you to believe Warner, Kaine and Democrats in the legislature went easy on those payday lending companies.”
To which a female voice responded: “That’s the same attack Jim Gilmore tried against Mark Warner.”
Former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore unsuccessfully challenged Warner in the 2008 U.S. Senate election.
Jamie Fulmer, spokesman for payday firm Advance America, said existing state regulations were already squeezing the industry.
“The legislature passed one of the most restrictive laws in the country,” he said. “We operate under that law.”
